Tag: Celtics

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Beyond the Arc Sports

Gassed Grizzlies Fight Hard in Narrow Loss to Celtics

Desmond Bane and Santi Aldama on the court with Jrue Holiday, Jaylen Brown, and Kristaps Porzingis. Credit: Aimee Stiegemeyer

With a final score of 102-100, the Memphis Grizzlies put up a hell of a fight against the Boston Celtics, the current top team in the league. They have been playing shorthanded all season long, were on the second night of back-to-back games, and by all accounts had no business making the game as close as it was.

The Celtics are a team the Grizzlies have long struggled against. Memphis has had just two wins over Boston since January 2016 and are 19-36 in the 55 regular season meetings between the teams. Anyone with any sense watching the Grizzlies this season had this matchup against the Celtics as a scheduled loss, but Memphis fans should feel good about the effort made.

“Take it every day of the week” was how head coach Taylor Jenkins described the Grizzlies’ effort postgame. They got a career night from Santi Aldama, who played multiple positions throughout the game due to foul trouble on Bismack Biyombo and Jaren Jackson Jr.

Aldama finished the night with a career-high 28 points, 12 rebounds, 6 assists, and two steals, including 6 made three-pointers.

Jenkins was effusive in his praise of Aldama postgame: “He’s got so much versatility, just really proud of the offensive effort tonight. We needed that. It didn’t matter what his position was. He started at the three, slid to the four. I think with our second unit, he had to play some [at the] five, and he can be a playmaker for us. … The aggressiveness, especially from the 3-point line, is something he’s been working a lot on since the start of the season … Just really impressed with how he really was in attack-mode tonight.”

Desmond Bane closed out the night with a game-high 30 points and 8 assists, while shooting 7 of 14 from beyond the arc. Jaren Jackson Jr was the only other Memphis player to score in double digits, with 17 points and 8 rebounds.

Holding the number-one offense in the NBA to just over 100 points is wild, and the fact that they did it being wildly shorthanded and exhausted from the previous night’s matchup against the Spurs was superhero-level defense.

This is a better team than their current record depicts, they just need to stay the course until the return of Ja Morant. Just 12 more games until we get 12 back.

Who Got Next?

The Grizzlies will be hitting the road to face off against the Houston Rockets and former Grizzly Dillon Brooks on Wednesday, November 22. Tip-off is at 7 PM CST.

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Beyond the Arc Sports

Postgame Notebook: Grizzlies 110, Celtics 106 — Gasol Sits, Bayless Erupts in a Weird, Wild One.

CREDIT: LARRY KUZNIEWSKI

Darrell Arthur started and stepped up in Marc Gasols absence.

  • LARRY KUZNIEWSKI
  • Darrell Arthur started and stepped up in Marc Gasol’s absence.

The Lead: The lead story of this game is not the game itself, it’s the news that came prior to tip, that Marc Gasol would not play. This news was followed by a one-liner press release from the team:

The Memphis Grizzlies today announced that center Marc Gasol re-aggravated an abdominal tear on March 22 at New Orleans and will be out indefinitely.

That may sound bad, and it’s certainly not optimal, but I’d caution against freakouts. As the release implies, Gasol’s been playing hurt the last couple of weeks, and still playing well. There had already been signs and adjustments. Gasol was not jumping the tip in recent games to save wear and tear. And he would wince some after physical plays (such as the two charges he took against the Thunder). I wondered if the Randolph-heavy offensive game plan against the Thunder was related to that the injury.

As for sitting him now, my sense is there’s a cause/benefit aspect: How important is the remaining playoff positioning and how do you weigh that against the value of rest and treatment for an injury that won’t be going away before playoff time?

Both before and after the game, coach Lionel Hollins suggested it was a day-to-day thing. Others I talked with suggested Gasol would likely miss multiple games. But no one seems to think this endangers his availability for the postseason.

With Gasol out and Zach Randolph coming off the bench after being late to shootaround, the Grizzlies started Ed Davis and Darrell Arthur up front. The Celtics were also shifting lineups, with Kevin Garnett and Courtney Lee both out with ankle sprains.

The result was an out-of-character contest for this particular match-up. On the season, both Memphis and Boston are elite defensive teams (second and fifth, respectively) who play at a slow pace (28th and 19th) and are mediocre offensively (20th and 22nd).

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Beyond the Arc Sports

Road Recap: Grizzlies 93, Celtics 83

CREDIT: LARRY KUZNIEWSKI

Mike Conley broke out of his December slump in a big way against the Celtics.

  • LARRY KUZNIEWSKI
  • Mike Conley broke out of his December slump in a big way against the Celtics.

If ever there was a game that backed up my now oft-stated assertion that as Mike Conley goes, so go the Griz, it was last night in Boston, where the Grizzlies got a double-digit road win despite Zach Randolph and Marc Gasol combining for 11 points on 4-15 shooting.

But Conley combined a season-high 23 points (on 8-15 shooting) with nine assists and only one turnover, all while playing 44 minutes due to a first-quarter Jerryd Bayless ankle sprain. The team also got good games from Rudy Gay (19-6-5, though Paul Pierce lit him up early on), Tony Allen (15-5, on 6-8 shooting), and reserve bigs Marreese Speights and Darrell Arthur (a combined 20-9 on 8-13 shooting).

Mitigating the good vibes: The Celtics are really struggling right now. They’ed gone 2-7 in their previous nine games, with six of those seven losses in double figures. And, offensively, though the Grizzlies’ performance looks good at a glance, there were again problems down the stretch. After scoring 25 points in each of the first three quarters, the Grizzlies managed only 18 in the fourth, with much of that padded by late free-throws. The Grizzlies had more shot-clock violations (2) than made field goals (1) in the game’s final nine minutes. They seemed to be playing tight and too conservatively; running down the clock and getting tough, contested, often forced shots as a result.